Bulls’ Derrick Rose has difficult decision to make

The cruel joke nearly complete, the only thing left now is for Derrick Rose to potentially decide between two gut-wrenching options.

The first might sideline him the remainder of the season. The other could place him back in the Chicago Bulls lineup much sooner from the torn right meniscus injury he suffered on Friday but might result in adverse long-range implications for the 25-yar-old point guard.

Rose faces the prospect of missing nearly a second consecutive regular season after sitting out all of last year with a torn left anterior cruciate ligament. And trying to come back sooner could compromise his future.

It doesn’t get much more Déjà vu than that.

In the course of the same calendar year, the best point guard in the NBA might twice have to face a decision that simultaneously challenges his devotion and prudence.

Rose was cleared by the Bulls medical staff to return from the knee injury during last season’s playoffs, but a doctor’s blessing and the inner belief he was well enough to endure the physical demands of his sport didn’t exactly jive.

In the end Rose chose not to play, a personal decision that wasn’t universally embraced and some would suggest was the difference-maker in the Bulls’ loss to the Miami Heat in a seven-game series.

He might soon arrive at that same dangerous intersection, his options pending what Bulls team physician Brian Cole discovers upon operating on Rose today in Chicago.

Meanwhile, across the NBA teammates and foes alike are holding out hope the surgery yields the best possible results.

“Prayers and thoughts go out to Derrick,” Bulls teammate Carlos Boozer said Sunday at Staples Center. “I’m hoping he has a quick recovery and a healthy recovery.”

But even if surgery reveals an injury Rose is capable of recovering from this season, he soon will confront the same clamoring he faced last season when all of Chicago anxiously awaited his return.

And the same need for inner peace before he does.

Those two components don’t always line up perfectly.

“It’s a fine line, and this process will probably be more difficult than the last one,” Clippers forward Blake Griffin said. “Because everyone from March on was asking, ‘When is he going to come back, when is he going to come back? And depending on how this surgery goes it’s going to be the same scenario where he might be (cleared) to play but might not feel (ready) to play.”

Griffin, himself a veteran of the frustrating process of dealing with serious injuries, preaches patience.

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“I always feel it’s best to err on the side of caution and not rush it,” he said.

To be sure, Rose is facing an uncanny coincidence.

He delayed his comeback from the first knee injury to avoid a damaging setback, and yet this happens. The rust from missing all of last season wasn’t completely sandpapered over the first month of this season, and now he’s back nearly to square one.

Crawford can relate. Back in the summer of 2001 he was a member of the Bulls when he tore his left ACL and meniscus playing a pick-up game with Michael Jordan and some other NBA players.

It took Crawford 10 months to return to the Bulls, but nearly two years to finally get his peace of mind back.

“And it’s weird because when I knew it was finally better, it just clicked,” Crawford said. “I was playing one day the (following) summer, after the season was over, and I was like ‘Ah, it’s better.’ You know what I’m saying? And mentally I was finally at peace. But you have to get to that point and everyone’s timeline is different.”

It’s a mental hurdle Rose once again will confront, even though hasn’t completely cleared it from the knee injury.

It’s also a process Kobe Bryant is dealing with right now as he closes in on a return from the Achilles tendon injury he suffered last April.

Bryant has been cleared by the Lakers medical staff to return to the Lakers, but he hasn’t yet rectified that consent within himself.

He continues to play chess with the Achilles on the practice floor, alternately pushing it hard and then tapering off as he seeks an acceptable comfort level, all while eyeing the time he finally puts high-leverage demands on the foot during an actual game.

And hoping it holds up.

“And like Kobe said after getting hurt, ‘That’s a move I’ve made million times,’ ” Crawford said. “That’s something that lingers in the back of your mind.”

And takes time to expunge.

“It’s almost like (when Manny) Pacquiao got knocked out,” Crawford said. “Because he’s now thinking, ‘If I get hit again am I going to get knocked out?’ It’s a mental thing and you don’t know until you get back out there.”

Bryant is closing in on his return.

Rose must wait until doctors get a closer look at his right knee before his options are laid out.

This being his second go-around with a serious injury in less than two years, at least he has recent history to draw on.